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Google Glass as a Gaming Tool Now More Likely with New Developments

Love it or hate it, planning to ban it or welcoming it into everyday operations, a tool for business or for hipsters having fun, there are plenty of ways to think about Google Glass. But one way to think about Google Glass that may not be so widely considered is as a gaming device, a development that's likely about to change thanks to a new crop of games specifically geared toward running with Google's new smart glasses.

Gaming is an increasingly prevalent part of life. New reports suggest that the top 200 games on Google Play alone pull in an average of $12 million per day worldwide, and that's just the tip of the iceberg by the time the various other sources of gaming fun—from consoles to PC systems—are considered. So to think that Google Glass was going to get in on the gaming action at some point was probably a foregone conclusion, one that's being realized even now.

The development process is still in its early days, so the games being developed are really somewhat simplistic. But the idea of having a game that follows a user where ever that user may happen to be is an interesting—some might even say exciting—proposition that's hard to turn down. So Google let everyone know via its Glass Developers blog that five comparatively simple games—Balance, Clay Shooter, Matcher, Shape Splitter and Tennis—were put together specifically for use on the Google Glass system.

The games are surprisingly simple in nature, especially once said games are seen in action in a video Google released, and take advantage of the unique Google Glass system to reflect the controls. Balance, for example, requires users to tilt the display in a certain direction to keep a pile of shapes balanced atop a little dome with eyes. Matcher looks eerily reminiscent of the 1992 film “The Lawnmower Man” thanks to its heavy use of hexagons. The rest seem to involve a combination of look and point—Clay Shooter requires users to say the word “bang” in order to “shoot down” “clay targets,” like a simulated skeet shoot that might get users arrested if it's played in public—in a fashion that makes a lot of sense with the Google Glass makeup.

But these aren't the first such instances of games for Google Glass. Reports have emerged from as far back as last year where Google Glass was actually used to play a round of “Super Mario Bros.” with the unlikely addition of a 3D-printed webcam backed up with an NES emulator.

While there may not exactly be a huge move to get users playing games that require said users to tilt heads and yell “Bang!” in public places, these are really just concept games. Sure, it's going to be a while before these are really ready for prime time—going to be a while before Google Glass itself can say likewise!--but the idea is there, and it's ready to be taken and run with.

With such a pot involved in gaming for Android—not to mention gaming everywhere else—the idea that game developers would want in makes perfect sense, so developing games for Glass will likely carry on for some time. This will bring some exciting new changes to the field, changes very much worth watching.